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John McCain? Sarah Palin? Please fuck off.

Like Barack Obama, Democrats have been quite reserved about joining John McCain and Sarah Palin in the political mud. Obama has made his short, national political career about staying above such things and appearing as the “better than that” candidate and it’s worked. No reason to stop now.

However, some of us aren’t better than that and it’s time to counter some of the slander. So, let’s get to it:

1. Sarah Palin is among the most unqualified, unintelligent Vice Presidential candidates in history.

Let’s just be honest: Sarah Palin is a fucking idiot. She’s an embarrassment. If hockey moms all over the country are thrilled with her selection because she’s one of them and she understands their problems, then hockey moms all over the country are fucking idiots. Seriously, is this what our country has become? Suddenly we expect no more from our Vice President than a front-page understanding of world issues, if that? Sarah Palin was a runner-up in the Miss Alaska Beauty Contest. Look, I don’t want to impugn every beauty contestant who’s ever lived and I’m sure that quite a few of them are fairly smart, but for Christ’s sake, it’s not exactly the kind of arena where we cull our national leaders, is it? Take a look at Palin’s educational background and you find a resume of a person who bounced around shitty colleges nobody ever heard of. Matanuska-Susitna College? I’m sure it’s a fine school, but are we really at the point where we want our national leaders to come from vocational schools? I mean, she doesn’t have to be Ivy League, but c’mon.

2. The “palling around with terrorists” accusation is disgusting, pure hypocrisy, and again, embarrassing.

It’s sick that the country is going down the financial toilet and the McCain/Palin response is to talk about Obama’s association with William Ayers. If you want to know what palling around with terrorists really is about, just ask Sarah Palin, or do some research on her relationship with Alaska Independence Party founder Joe Vogler. There’s a comprehensive article here: http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/10/07/palins_unamerican/. Remember when Palin told Joe Biden that paying taxes wasn’t patriotic? You can trace such anti-American rhetoric to her affiliation with Vogler, who felt shooting federal officials was a good thing to do. So let’s conclude: Sarah Palin hates America.

3. What did Obama do with William Ayers?

No Democrat has had the balls to stand up and say “So fucking what?” So let’s assume for a moment that Obama and Ayers are pals, which no reputable new organization has yet corroborated. What did they do together that’s so infuriating Republicans? The two crossed paths on a board in order to bring a $50 million grant to Chicago schools. Holy shit, burn them at the stake! Imagine the gall two people could have working together to improve Chicago’s educational system. That’s their main connection.

4. “Kill him!”

This terrorist rhetoric spewed by the McCain/Palin ticket is causing a nice reaction amongst their followers, who are now yelling “Kill him” in reference to Obama. Worse than that, nobody on the ticket is standing up to it. Effectively, McCain/Palin is now happily inciting its followers to murder their opponent. This might be one of the most disgusting things we’ve ever seen in a presidential election. And if, God forbid, something should happen, McCain/Palin should be held accountable.

5. Sarah Palin’s daughter

Again, nobody will take on Palin’s hypocrisy. Her daughter is 17-years-old, unmarried, and pregnant. It’s really unfortunate that her innocent daughter has to be a lightning rod for her mother’s hypocrisy, but that’s what happens when you’re in a political family. Basically, the problem is that her mother takes great pride in telling other people’s children that they shouldn’t have sex and that they shouldn’t use birth control and that pre-marital sex is a sin and just wrong, wrong, wrong. Here’s an idea, Sarah, how about you stay the fuck out of other people’s business and try working on keeping your own kids in line because, apparently, they aren’t listening to you. And um maybe, had your daughter been encouraged to use birth control in the unfortunate instance she was going to have pre-marital sex, she wouldn’t be pregnant.

6. McCain’s age

This is another one of those issues that nobody will talk about for fear of offending old people, but somebody just has to say something. McCain is too old. A lot of 72-year-olds shouldn’t be driving. Ask any 72-year-old whether or not they’re as sharp as they were when they were 42 and the honest ones will tell you that they are not. Your brain just doesn’t operate the same way. Things don’t work as effectively or as quickly. There’s no doubt that McCain’s experience is worth something, but if that’s the case, then his advancing age is a factor as well.

7. The Financial Crisis

It’s interesting that McCain’s solution to the financial crisis is massive government spending. It’s also interesting that he’s trying to blame Obama for the current state of affairs. McCain couldn’t be running from his party’s ideology faster if he had a rocket strapped to his back. McCain is a deregulationist to his core and, like the Republicans and George Bush, is almost solely responsible for this mess. They are the fuckwads who’ve been yelling all these years about how, if we just let businesses run free of government intrusion, the free market would take care of everything. Well, look how that worked out, assholes. Greedy businesses have run wild, created unsafe financial structures, and basically fucked us all over. Now the Republican solution is to take taxpayer money and turn it over to these same assholes to correct all their mistakes. Just take a look in the dictionary under “fucked up shit” and you’ll find an explanation of this crisis. That any Republican has the gall to blame this on Democrats is screwed up beyond belief. And incidentally, I’m not saying socialism is the answer here, but neither is unmitigated deregulation. There’s a happy medium and it’s that happy medium that Republicans tossed into the shitter.

Okay, so that’s it for now. I’m tired of even thinking about this crap anymore. Suffice it to say that I’m actually kind of surprised that there’s anyone in this country who’d even consider voting for McCain/Palin. They’re scum.

However loony the looniest of right wingers are, part of the lunacy usually includes some form of sexism - Women don't deserve complete reproductive freedom, equal pay, or to be president. I think the choice of Palin, after the initial shock and shiny, sparkly fascination wore off, turned the far, far right off too. I mean, she's a chick, for Christ's sake! Even were she brilliant, moderate, and compassionate, she'd still polarize republicans - at the very least, she drives off the woman-haters (even though she kind of is one). I have great hope the nuttiest of the nuts will vote liberatarian (sp?) because they just can't support an XX on the ticket. Oh, the irony - to have my fingers crossed for many, many misogynists!

Seriously, having to deal with hate-filled idiots online is bad enough, but seeing them catered to by the candidates for President and Vice-President from a major party is just plain scary. Hell, McCain actually got to the point today where he had to tell some of his more rabid supporters that Obama was a "decent family man" who they "shouldn't fear becoming President" - and he got booed for it.

Here's a letter re: the faux crisis (it is actually a correction) I sent to the NYTimes

Am I the only one who doesn't know a single person who is panicking over this "crisis"? Probably not, as it seems the noisemakers are all either huddled togetherin congressional offices, 5-diamond resorts, or on the floor of the major exchanges. To wit: only them with a direct political stake seem to be lamenting their own misdeeds. Only they are screaming for help.

Of course, it makes perfect sense that the average Joe is not climbing the walls, much to the chagrin of these movers and mistakers. The Fed's brutal, purposeful opacity ("irrational exuberance", please!) has come back to bite them. For, you see, the dealings of Wall St. and the Fed were calculated in numbers SO astronomically large and manifested in goods SO ineffably arcane as to appear as nothing less than science fiction to me and my kind. And so, to the calls to arms made by Messrs Paulson and Bernanke, Ms. Pelosi, et al, I say, "reap what ye have sown". Americans do not need help of the sort you offer and you know it.

Here is a link:http://www.myfoxmaine.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=7688850&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=3.2.1

Some nut-job put this billboard in front of his house depicting Obama in his "Muslim" garb (Actually - his clothing was from Kenya...) it is so idiotic that these fear-mongerers keep thinking Obama is a secret muslim. Don't be stupid. The right had nothing legitimate to say against him so they had to make up crap.

...how long ago was it? I really don't know, but the guy's got no noticeable accent, so it must have been long before the age of 14.

I was watching the daily show last night, and theywere interviewing people from both sides asking them why they weren't going to vote for the opponent. I know it's a comedy show, but these were real people, and their statements were real, as far as I could tell, the comedy came when the interviewer would make fun of their answers.

One guy said, "He's too muslim." The reporter said something to the effect of, "He's not muslim, what part of him not being muslim is too muslim for you?" The guy didn't know. A few others said he was muslim as well. Another didn't like his association with the Reverend. One womam said he doesn't live in the same reality everyone else does. The reporter mocked her by saying something like, "wow, amazing how hard it must be for him, waking up every day in that alternate reality, not seeing things clearly the way that we see them."

Here's the deal, the guy is half black, and he was born in Kenya. Aside from that, which isn't a fault to begin with, I don't see what the big deal is. And if the fact that he's black is such a big deal to you, do what David Alan Greir said, "vote for the white half."